E-mail a friendRobert Greenwald
original airdate March 19, 2007
Award-winning independent filmmaker Robert Greenwald has executive produced and/or directed more than 50 TV, miniseries and feature films. He's drawn to issue-oriented projects and his films have tackled such subjects as human rights abuse, discrimination and teenagers in prison. His most recent project, Outfoxed; Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, is the second-hottest documentary in the country. In his spare time, Greenwald serves on the board of various community organizations.
Robert Greenwald
Tavis: Robert Greenwald's an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose previous projects include "Iraq for Sale" and "Outfoxed." His latest endeavor debuted online over the weekend at the website IraqMemorial.org. On the site, you can view hundreds of testimonials from friends and family members of many of the U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq. Here now, just a small sample of this unique Internet memorial.
[Clip]
Tavis: Robert, good to see you again.
Robert Greenwald: Thank you.
Tavis: I went online earlier today to take a look at this site, knowing that we were gonna have a conversation tonight, and the first thing that occurred to me when I went online was that I saw more today online relative to these soldiers than I've seen out of Dover Air Force Base when their bodies come home over the last four years.
Everybody knows today's the four year anniversary of this - commemoration, let's not say anniversary, commemoration is probably a better word. But is it just me, or has that occurred to you, as well, that what this administration has done, starting with former Secretary Rumsfeld, shut down all the coverage - media coverage, that is to say - of the bodies coming back to Dover.
So to really hear families offer tribute and to learn more about these persons, this site today has given me more in one day than I've gotten from the media in four years, 'cause the administration won't let us see these bodies coming home, and hear their stories.
Greenwald: Well, I was very affected by that, and wanted to tell the stories of these people, because I have a slightly different experience, or maybe it's the same. I read these numbers, and they become statistics to me. And as hard as I try every day, it's seven killed, or 10, or 20, and I can't get beyond the number.
So this was an effort to remind all of us that whatever your politics, there are brothers and sisters and sons and daughters who are being killed there, day after day. And we have to remember their humanity and their families and friends. The rest of their lives, they will experience and feel that loss.
Tavis: Let me come back to the earlier point, and I want to advance it. What's your sense, though, of the fact that this administration, in fact, has not allowed the nation to grieve in that way? And not even just grieve, but just to be connected, to be aware. I think the American - this number over 3,000 is a huge number.
But if every day on the news, every day somewhere, every week somewhere, we could see these bodies actually coming home, as opposed to reading another seven died, another 10 died - and that's powerful enough, to your point. But we don't see - it's the visual. What makes this website work is the visual. We've not had the visual for four years of bodies coming back to Dover every week.
Greenwald: Absolutely. And if we had the visual and we had the human story - so it would be the visual and the feeling these could be your relatives or mine - I think there would be even more of an outcry about the killing that's continuing day after day.
Tavis: Where did this idea come from?
Greenwald: As the fourth year was coming up - and I agree with you, let's not call it anniversary - I wanted to do something. And I started thinking, well, what are the things that have affected me? You know "The New York Times" 9/11, when they do those little bios? And the AIDS quilt. And both of them managed to make it personal and human.
And that's what my colleagues and I at Brave New Foundation wanted to do. How could we make it personal? Again, how do we get beyond the newspaper headline, and how do we do something that we're not being allowed to do, which is connect humanly and grieve and mourn and respect those who have been killed.
Tavis: How do you put the word out to family members and friends that this website exists? How did you initiate the process of getting folk to know that it's here, and that we'd like for you to participate and involve yourself in it?
Greenwald: Well, one of my colleagues spent months just e-mailing, setting other websites, letting soldiers know. We have a lot of soldiers participate. And that's the wonderful, wonderful thing about the Internet, that democratic thing, that over time, word gets out and we're starting to hear from all kinds of families. A mother e-mailed me saying, "Thank you for doing this, 'cause it allows me to remember how my son lived rather than how he died."
And it's kind of spread slowly. Shows like yours helping us. And this will be continuing. So anybody with a video camera, anybody who's had that loss can continue now. Go video, tell us your story, send it in, or we'll send somebody to video you. We have volunteers from Brave New Films all across the country who are helping us.
Tavis: These things are about what, 60 seconds?
Greenwald: Sixty seconds, yeah.
Tavis: In length?
Greenwald: Yes, exactly. We're asking one minute each.
Tavis: Long before I got to PBS, I started out in radio. I think most folk probably don't know this, but I started out in radio doing a 60-second commentary, and I really learned some years ago the value of what you can say in 60 seconds. How poignant - most of our TV commercials are 60 seconds in length. So you can really get a lot out in 60 seconds. I raise that only because I wonder how poignant, how powerful you think these messages are coming over the Internet in 60 seconds.
Greenwald: Well, individually I find them - myself and my colleagues would be in tears during the couple of months we've been working on this, because again, it's somebody talking about a guy who lost his brother. A mother tells about the loss, last time she saw her son. Someone else talks about his father, who was a musician.
It's those simple things. But to me, it makes them come alive. And then you say, "My goodness, the rest of their lives, they're missing those people. The rest of their lives. This is gonna go on every single day." So I think you can do a lot if you keep at what we're doing, and what people are doing - it's not us, we're just the vehicle - is telling that human story.
Tavis: You see this site mostly, Robert, for families of victims or for those of us who are Americans and have a vested interest in this, never mind our politics, but have not lost someone who's close to us in this war.
Greenwald: Well, I hope it's for both. Because there are certainly the families who've been incredibly appreciative that we're doing this, but also, like myself (unintelligible) like you where I haven't, fortunately, had somebody really close to me. But again, it gives me a sense of that human value, and the similarity between all of us, right - no matter the differences, and no matter the politics - of a relative who will never be there again because of the war.
Tavis: So President Bush, as you know, spoke earlier today and said something which I suspect you won't find any surprise at all, that we're making progress in Iraq. That's what he had to say today on this four-year commemoration - we're making progress in Iraq. What do you make of what the president's message was earlier today, four years later?
Greenwald: Well, I think to call that progress is both obscene and distorting any definition of progress I've ever known. More and more people being killed, Americans and Iraqis. More people without homes, more people without water, more people without food, more people without electricity. That doesn't connect to any definition of progress I've ever heard or learned in my lifetime.
Tavis: What do you make of the fact that his definition of progress notwithstanding, four years later we're still mired in this mess?
Greenwald: Well, I think it's tragic. I think it's one of the great horrors of American policy that will be looked back upon. And separate from the memorial, which again we keep available to all politics, I personally have done everything that I can to first try to stop the war, and now try to end the killing that goes on day after day.
Again, Tavis, the numbers of Iraqis over there, we can't even begin to comprehend what that means each day. The number, the percentage of their population that's either being killed or is being forced to flee the country.
Tavis: So you've done a couple of documentaries about this, and now this memorial project here. On a personal level, tell me what it feels like to have invested that much energy, that much effort, that much time trying to get your fellow American citizens to say, "Hey, guys, this administration has it on the wrong track," and you've been beating this drum for a number of years now.
For as long as Bush has been saying "We're making progress," you've been beating the drum, saying, "He's lying about this, this is not a good definition of progress." On a personal level, how does it make you feel to raise this issue so often, and to see on the one hand us still there, to your definition not making progress, but I suspect on the other hand also seeing that these war protests are growing in number every time they happen across the country.
Greenwald: Yeah. Well, it's really both. I wish it were over, and I wish I wasn't having - as many of my colleagues and hundreds of thousands of people all around the country are doing - having to put all this energy in. But on the other hand, I really believe that great slogan, which is democracy is not a spectator sport.
You get involved. And the satisfaction, knowing that I can do something than be angry, and that for my four children, who I think of every single day in terms of the decisions that I make, that I can look myself in the mirror and say, "I'm trying, and I'm doing whatever I can." And I think that's all each of us can do, right? Whatever we possibly can. I make films, this is my tool. You have your tool, and others have other ways of being effective and trying to stop what is clearly tragic.
Tavis: To your latter point - again, politics notwithstanding - tell me how people can get involved in this project, how long this site's gonna be up.
Greenwald: The site is gonna be up forever, through the beauty of viral and the Internet, and people can go to the memorial. They can video themselves, they can make a contribution, they can watch it, and they can show it to others. People can go and with their laptops show this memorial. It's being shown in restaurants and schools and churches and at vigils all over the country.
So it's a way that again, we say here is the memorial, but you don't need to go to Washington, D.C. You don't need to see the quilt. It can be right with you, with your laptop.
Tavis: Robert Greenwald, it's always good to see you.
Greenwald: Thank you, sir.
Tavis: I'm glad to have you here. IraqMemorial.org, again, is the website. Up next on this program, Grammy-winning artist Joss Stone joins us. Stay with us.
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